Tao Lin

Tao Lin (林韜) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, short-story writer, and artist. He has published three novels, a novella, two books of poetry, a collection of short stories and a memoir as well as an extensive assortment of online content. His third novel, Taipei, was published by Vintage on June 4, 2013.[1] His nonfiction book, Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change, was published by Vintage on May 1, 2018. Lin's next novel, Leave Society, will be published by Vintage on August 3, 2021.[2]

Tao Lin
BornJuly 2, 1983
Alexandria, Virginia
OccupationNovelist, poet, journalist
GenreLiterary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, Kmart realism, alt-lit
Notable worksTaipei, Bed, Richard Yates, Shoplifting from American Apparel
SpouseMegan Boyle (separated)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese林韜
Simplified Chinese林韬
Hanyu PinyinLín Tāo
Website
taolin.us

In November 2008 Lin founded Muumuu House, an independent publishing house, and in 2010 he co-founded MDMAfilms, an independent film production company.[3][4]

Personal life

Lin was born in Alexandria, Virginia, to Taiwanese parents and grew up in suburbs in and around Orlando, Florida, including Apokpa.[5] with two toy poodles, named Binky and Tabby.[6] He attended Lake Howell High School, where he played snare drum in the school's marching band. Lin moved from Florida to New York City for college in 2001. He graduated from New York University in 2005 with a B.A. in journalism.[7]

Lin supported himself after college by stealing batteries and selling them on eBay, by working at New York University's Bobst Library, by working at New York Society Library on the Upper East Side, and by working at Angelica Kitchen, an organic vegan restaurant in Manhattan.[8][9] He quit his job after selling shares of the future royalties of his novel Richard Yates online in 2009.[10] After Richard Yates, Lin got a literary agent, Bill Clegg, who sold his next book, Taipei, to a larger publisher, Vintage Books, which has published his subsequent work.[11] Lin moved to Hawaii in January 2020.[12]

Lin has lectured on his writing and art at Vassar College, Kansas City Art Institute, Columbia College, UNC Chapel Hill, and other universities and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum. In 2012 and in 2015 he taught a graduate course at Sarah Lawrence College called "The Contemporary Short Story."[13]

Lin has one brother, who lives in New York; their father is a retired physics professor.[14][15]

In 2014, the website Jezebel posted tweets by Lin's former partner, writer E.R. Kennedy, alleging abuse, statutory rape, and plagiarism from 2005, when Kennedy was 16 and Lin was 22. Kennedy deleted the tweets and asked Jezebel to remove the article, a request Jezebel ignored.[16][17] Lin responded on Facebook, denying the allegations.[18]

Critical response

Lin's writing has attracted negative and positive criticism from various publications. Gawker once called him "maybe perhaps the single most irritating person we've ever had to deal with",[19] though he was later "pardoned". After reading this criticism, Lin retaliated by completely covering the front door of the Gawker office building with stickers bearing Britney Spears's name.[20] Later, Gawker published a piece Lin had written.[21] L Magazine wrote, "We've long been deeply irked by Lin's vacuous posturing and 'I know you are but what am I' dorm-room philosophizing".[22] Sam Anderson wrote in New York Magazine, "Dismissing Lin, however, ignores the fact that he is deeply smart, funny, and head-over-heels dedicated in exactly the way we like our young artists to be."[23] Miranda July has called Lin's work "moving and necessary."[24]

The Atlantic described Lin as having a "fairly staggering" knack for self-promotion. The same article read, "there's something unusual about a writer being so transparent, so ready to tell you every insignificant detail of a seemingly eventful day, so aware of his next novel's word count, yet also remaining so opaque, mysterious, 'inscrutable.'"[25] In n+1, critic Frank Guan called Lin "the first great male Asian author of American descent."[26]

Lin's work has been praised in the UK, including positive reviews from The Guardian[27][28] and the Times Literary Supplement, which called Lin was "a daring, urgent voice for a malfunctioning age",[29] and a 2010 career overview by the London Review of Books.[30]

Since 2013, Lin's work has been associated with the mode of writing called "autofiction."[31][32] Fellow autofictioners have praised his work. Ben Lerner said, "One thing I like about Tao’s writing is how beside the point for me ‘liking’ it feels—it’s a frank depiction of the rhythm of a contemporary consciousness or lack of consciousness and so it has a power that bypasses those questions of taste entirely. Like it or not, it has the force of the real.”[33] Of Trip, Sheila Heti wrote, "This book has changed how I understand myself on a cellular level. It’s a superbly researched, moving, and formally inventive quest for re-enchantment, and Tao Lin’s most compelling and profound book yet."[34]

Books

you are a little bit happier than i am (2006)

In November 2006 Lin's first book, a poetry collection titled you are a little bit happier than i am, was published. It was the winner of Action Books' December Prize and has been a small-press bestseller.[35][36]

Eeeee Eee Eeee & Bed (2007)

In May 2007 Lin's first novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and first story collection, Bed, were published simultaneously. Of the stories, Jennifer Bassett wrote in KGB Lit Journal, "In structure and tone, they have the feel of early Lorrie Moore and Deborah Eisenberg. Like Moore's characters, there are a lot of plays on language and within each story, a return to the same images or ideas—or jokes. And like Moore, most of these characters live in New York, are unemployed or recently employed, and are originally from somewhere more provincial (Florida in Lin's case, Wisconsin in Moore's). However, Lin knows to dig a little deeper into his characters—something we see in Moore's later stories, but less so in her early ones."[37]

The books were ignored by most mainstream media but have since been referenced in The Independent (which called Eeeee Eee Eeee "a wonderfully deadpan joke"[38]) and The New York Times, which called Lin a "deadpan literary trickster"[39] in reference to Eeeee Eee Eeee.

cognitive-behavioral therapy (2008)

In May 2008 Lin's second poetry collection, cognitive-behavioral therapy was published.[40]

The poem "room night" from this collection was anthologized in Wave Books' State of the Union.[41] A French translation was published by Au Diable Vauvert[42] in 2012.

Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009)

In September 2009 Lin's novella Shoplifting from American Apparel was published to mixed reviews. The Guardian wrote, "Trancelike and often hilarious… Lin's writing is reminiscent of early Douglas Coupland, or early Bret Easton Ellis, but there is also something going on here that is more profoundly peculiar, even Beckettian."[27] The Village Voice called it a "fragile, elusive book".[43] Bookslut wrote, "it shares an affected childishness with bands like The Moldy Peaches and it has a put-on weirdness reminiscent of Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You."[44] Time Out New York wrote, "Writing about being an artist makes most contemporary artists self-conscious, squeamish and arch. Lin, however, appears to be comfortable, even earnest, when his characters try to describe their aspirations (or their shortcomings) [...] purposefully raw."[45] The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Tao Lin's sly, forlorn, deadpan humor jumps off the page [...] will delight fans of everyone from Mark Twain to Michelle Tea."[46] The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Camus' The Stranger or sociopath?";[47] the Austin Chronicle called it "scathingly funny" and wrote that "it might just be the future of literature."[48] Another reviewer described it as "a vehicle...for self-promotion."[49]

In a December 2009 episode of KCRW's Bookworm, Michael Silverblatt called the novella "the purest example so far of the minimalist aesthetic as it used to be enunciated"[50] and Lin described the novella's style as deliberately "concrete, with all the focus on surface details, with no sentences devoted to thoughts or feelings, and I think that results in a kind of themelessness, that, in its lack of focus on anything else, the theme becomes, to me, the passage of time."[50]

In December 2009 clothing retailer Urban Outfitters began selling Shoplifting from American Apparel in its stores.[51]

Richard Yates (2010)

Published September 7, 2010, by Melville House,[52] Richard Yates is Lin's second novel.

In a New York Times review, Charles Bock called the book "more interesting as a concept than as an actual narrative", adding, "By the time I reached the last 50 pages, each time the characters said they wanted to kill themselves, I knew exactly how they felt."[53]

Taipei (2013)

On February 23, 2013, Publishers Weekly awarded Taipei a starred review, predicting it would be Lin's "breakout" book and describing it as "a novel about disaffection that's oddly affecting" and "a book without an ounce of self-pity, melodrama, or posturing."[54] The same month, Bret Easton Ellis tweeted, "With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation, which doesn't mean that Taipei isn't a boring novel".[55]

Taipei was published by Vintage on June 4, 2013, to mostly positive reviews. Novelist Benjamin Lytal, writing in the New York Observer, called it Lin's "modernist masterpiece",[56] adding, "[W]e should stop calling Tao Lin the voice of his generation. Taipei, his new novel, has less to do with his generation than with the literary tradition of Knut Hamsun, Ernest Hemingway, and Robert Musil." According to Slate, "Taipei casts a surprisingly introspective eye on the spare, 21st-century landscape Lin has such a knack for depicting".[57]

New York Times critic Dwight Garner wrote, "I loathe reviews in which a critic claims to have love-hate feelings about a work of art. It's a way of having no opinion at all. But I love and hate Taipei".[58]

On June 18, critic Emily Witt wrote in The Daily Beast:[59]

Taipei is exactly the kind of book I hoped Tao Lin would one day write. He is one of the few fiction writers around who engages with contemporary life, rather than treating his writing online as existing in opposition to or apart from the hallowed analog space of the novel. He's consistently good for a few laughs and writes in a singular style already much imitated by his many sycophants on the Internet. Some people like Tao Lin for solely these reasons, or treat him as a sort of novelty or joke. But Lin can also produce the feelings of existential wonder that all good novelists provoke. His writing reveals the hyperbole in conversational language that we use, it seems, to make up for living lives where equanimity and well-adjustment are the most valued attributes, where human emotions are pathologized into illness: we do not fall in love, we become "obsessed"; we do not dislike, we "hate". We manipulate ourselves chemically to avoid acting "crazy."

On June 30, in The New York Times Book Review, Clancy Martin wrote:

His writing is weird, upsetting, memorable, honest—and it's only getting better [...] But I didn't anticipate Taipei, his latest, which is, to put it bluntly, a gigantic leap forward. Here we have a serious, first-rate novelist putting all his skills to work. Taipei is a love story, and although it's Lin's third novel it's also, in a sense, a classic first novel: it's semi-autobiographical (Lin has described it as the distillation of 25,000 pages of memory) and it's a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story about a young man who learns, through love, that life is larger than he thought it was.

On July 5 The New York Times Book Review awarded Taipei an Editors' Choice[60] distinction. It was the only paperback on the list for the week.

On KCRW's "Bookworm", in a conversation with Lin,[61] Michael Silverblatt called it "The most moving depiction of the way we live now," calling it "unbearably moving."

Taipei was included on best book of the year lists by the Times Literary Supplement,[62] Village Voice,[63] Slate,[64] Salon, Bookforum,[65] The Week, Maisonneuve,[66] and Complex,[67] among others.

High Resolution, a film adaptation of Taipei, was released in 2018.[68]

Selected Tweets (2015)

On June 15, 2015, Short Flight/Long Drive Books published a collaborative double-book called Selected Tweets by Lin and poet Mira Gonzalez. The book features selections from eight years of their tweets at nine different Twitter accounts, as well as visual art by each author, footnotes, and "Extras". Emma Kolchin-Miller, writing in the Columbia Spectator, described the book as featuring "a selection of bleak, depressed, disturbing, funny, and personal tweets that create a fragmented narrative and show how Twitter can serve as a platform for art, storytelling, and connection."[69] Andrea Longini, writing for Electric Literature, opined: "Although Twitter in name implies a kind of chatter or 'twittering,' Tao Lin and Mira Gonzalez have elevated the medium into an art form with the power to transmit authentic observations." [70]

Trip (2018)

Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change, a nonfiction account of Lin's experiences with psychedelic drugs, was published by Vintage Books in May 2018. Much of the book is devoted to Lin's continuing fascination with the life and thought of Terence McKenna, as well as an introduction to McKenna's ex-wife Kathleen Harrison.[71]

Trip was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.[72] In Scientific American, John Horgan wrote, “If an aspirant asks for an example of experimental science writing, I’ll recommend Trip. The book veers from excruciatingly candid autobiography to biography (of McKenna) to investigative journalism…to interview-based journalism to philosophical speculation to first-person accounts of the effects of DMT and Salvia.”[73]

MDMAfilms

Lin and Megan Boyle co-founded the film company MDMAfilms in 2010.[74] The company has released three films, all recorded solely with a Macbook iSight camera: MDMA, Bebe Zeva, and Mumblecore.[75] A fourth film, World of Warcraft, has been "delayed."[76]

Mandalas

Since 2014 Lin has been drawing mandalas,[77] which have been published on the covers of the magazines Vice[78] and Story[79] and his book Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change.[80] In an interview with artist Dorothy Howard for Arachne, Lin said, "With my mandalas, I don’t walk around the painting, but I turn the paper so that I 'walk around' it."[81] He began selling prints of his mandalas on his website in 2020.[82]

Bibliography

Poetry
  • this emotion was a little e-book, (bear parade, 2006)
  • you are a little bit happier than i am, (Action Books, 2006)
  • cognitive-behavioral therapy, (Melville House, 2008)

Novels

Novellas

Stories
  • Today The Sky is Blue and White with Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale Moon and I Will Destroy Our Relationship Today, (bear parade, 2006)
  • Bed (Melville House, 2007)

Nonfiction

References
  1. Taipei. Vintage. June 4, 2013. ISBN 978-0307950178.
  2. "Penguin Random House". Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  3. Tao Lin Now Selling Videos of Himself on Ecstasy to Pay the Rent: An Interview with MDMAfilms, L Magazine
  4. Small Press Points, Poets & Writers
  5. https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/taipei-by-tao-lin-brooklyn-taiwan-xanax-twitter/Content?oid=2243393
  6. https://www.thefader.com/2013/10/11/personal-history-tao-lin-remembers-his-childhood-poodles
  7. Roy, Jessica. "NYU Alum and Poet Tao Lin Doesn't Care Whether or Not You Think Print Is Dead". NYU Local.
  8. http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs20110922-02.2.3
  9. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/tao-lin-1
  10. https://freakonomics.com//2008/08/01/when-a-novelist-holds-an-ipo/
  11. https://observer.com/2011/08/tao-lin-gchats-about-new-agent-bill-clegg-and-his-siddhartha-inspired-next-novel/
  12. https://www.countere.com/home/tao-lin-interview-leave-society
  13. "The Contemporary Short Story". Slc.edu. Archived from the original on 2014-01-12. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  14. Lin, Tao (2013-09-21). "When I Moved Online". The New York Times.
  15. "Tao Lin by David Shapiro Jr".
  16. Ryan, Erin (2014-10-02). "Alt-Lit Icon Tao Lin Accused of Statutory Rape and Abuse". Jezebel.
  17. Tsjeng, Zing (2014-10-02). "Tao Lin accused of statutory rape and emotional abuse". Dazed.
  18. Broderick, Ryan (2014-10-02). "Tao Lin Responds to Abuse Allegations on Facebook". Buzzfeed News.
  19. Gould, Emily (2007-07-27). "Now We Also Hate Miranda July". Gawker. Archived from the original on 2009-03-14. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  20. Gould, Emily (2007-12-04). "Pardons". Gawker. Archived from the original on 2008-07-03. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
  21. "An Account of Being Arrested for 'Trespassing' NYU's Bookstore". Gawker.com. Archived from the original on 2010-07-28. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  22. Kyzer, Larissa. "The Best of NYC LETTERS | Books | The L Magazine - New York City's Local Event and Arts & Culture Guide". The L Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  23. Anderson, Sam (2009-01-11). "Tao Lin, Lit Boy - The All New Issue - New York Magazine". Nymag.com. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  24. "Shoplifting From American Apparel". Melville House.
  25. Hua Hsu. "Terminal Boredom: Reading Tao Lin" retrieved August 25, 2010 from www.atlantic.com.
  26. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-20/reviews/nobodys-protest-novel/
  27. Poole, Steven (2009-11-14). "Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin – Book review". The Guardian. London.
  28. Lezard, Nicholas (2010-11-13). "Richard Yates by Tao Lin – review". The Guardian. London.
  29. "Article". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  30. Haglund, David (October 21, 2010). "A Kind of Gnawing Offness". London Review of Books. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
  31. https://www.vulture.com/2018/05/how-auto-is-autofiction.html
  32. https://www.vulture.com/2017/01/considering-the-novel-in-the-age-of-obama.html
  33. https://www.vulture.com/2013/06/tao-lin-profile-taipei-drugs-adderall.html
  34. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trip-tao-lin/1127201974
  35. "Poetry Bestsellers July Aug 2008 : Small Press Distribution". Spdbooks.org. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  36. "Poetry Bestsellers September 2007 : Small Press Distribution". Spdbooks.org. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  37. "Tao Lin's BED and EEEEE EEE EEEE". KGB Bar & Lit Journal. Archived from the original on 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  38. Thorne, Matt (2010-06-04). "Beatrice and Virgil, By Yann Martel". The Independent. London.
  39. Vizzini, Ned (2010-05-06). "Bridge Between Generations". The New York Times.
  40. "Melville House Publishing | Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy". Mhpbooks.com. Retrieved 2014-04-29.
  41. "State of the Union | Wave Books". Wavepoetry.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  43. Ben Beitler (2009-09-08). "Tao Lin's Five-Finger Discount - Page 1 - Books - New York". Village Voice. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  44. Kati Nolfi. "Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin". Bookslut. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  45. "Tao Lin - Shoplifting from American Apparel - Book review - Time Out New York". Newyork.timeout.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  46. Messer, Ari (2009-10-01). "Tao Lin: 'Shoplifting from American Apparel'". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  47. "Discoveries: 'Shoplifting From American Apparel'". Los Angeles Times. 2009-09-27. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
  48. "Austin Books: Review - Shoplifting From American Apparel". AustinChronicle.com. 2009-10-09. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  49. Nolfi, Katie (December 6, 2009). "Review a Day: Shoplifting from American Apparel". Powell's Books. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
  50. "Bookworm: Tao Lin". KCRW. December 3, 2009. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
  51. Schmidt, Mackenzie (2009-12-16). "Urban Outfitters Is Actually Selling Tao Lin's Novella Shoplifting at American Apparel - New York News - Runnin' Scared". Blogs.villagevoice.com. Archived from the original on 2010-04-14. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  52. Roy, Jessica (2009-09-25). "NYU Alum and Poet Tao Lin Doesn't Care Whether or Not You Think Print Is Dead". NYU Local. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  53. Charles Bock (September 24, 2010). "Book Review - Richard Yates - By Tao Lin - NYTimes.com". nytimes.com. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  54. "Fiction Review: Taipei by Tao Lin". Publishersweekly.com. 2013-02-25. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  55. Easton Ellis, Brett. "With "Taipei" Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation, which doesn't mean that "Taipei" isn't a boring novel..." Twitter. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  56. Lytal, Benjamin (2013-06-05). "Gchat Is a Noble Pursuit: Tao Lin's Modernist Masterpiece". Observer. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  57. Leung, Chuck (2013-06-07). "Tao Lin's Taipei reviewed: techy, drug-fueled, existential fiction. - Slate Magazine". Slate.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  58. Garner, Dwight (2013-06-04). "'Taipei,' by Tao Lin". The New York Times.
  59. Emily Witt (2013-06-18). "The Gpistolary Novel: Tao Lin's "Taipei"". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  60. "Editors' Choice". The New York Times. 2013-07-05.
  61. "Tao Lin: Taipei - Bookworm on KCRW 89.9 FM". Kcrw.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  62. "Books of the Year". The Times Literary Supplement. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  63. "Our Favorite Books of 2013 - - Books - New York". Village Voice. 2013-12-18. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  64. Staff, Slate (2013-11-30). "Slate staff picks for best books of 2013". Slate.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  65. Christian Lorentzen (2013-12-19). "the best novels of 2013". Bookforum.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  66. Butler, Blake (2013-12-11). "All the Books I Read in 2013 | VICE Canada". Vice.com. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  67. "Taipei — The Best Books of 2013". Complex. 2013-12-16. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  68. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4286760/
  69. "Tao Lin, Mira Gonzalez to release 'Selected Tweets' on June 15". Columbia Daily Spectator. Archived from the original on 1 May 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  70. "Telegraphing Coherence: Selected Tweets by Mira Gonzalez and Tao Lin". Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  71. "TRIP by Tao Lin - Kirkus Reviews" – via www.kirkusreviews.com.
  72. http://projects.latimes.com/bestsellers/titles/trip/
  73. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/oneness-weirdness-and-alienation/
  74. Tao Lin Now Selling Videos of Himself on Ecstasy to Pay the Rent: An Interview with MDMA Films, L Magazine
  75. Drugs, Meet Movies: Tao Lin and Megan Boyle's MDMAfilms, Indiewire
  76. "MDMAfilms". Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  77. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tao-lin-encourages-you-to-flip-his-work-218546
  78. https://twitter.com/tao_lin/status/525367685891510273
  79. https://www.facebook.com/taolin1983/photos/a-mandala-by-me-on-the-cover-of-issue-3-of-story-magazinehttpwwwtaolininfomandal/10155706568482481/
  80. "Twitter". January 9, 2018. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  81. https://www.arachne.cc/issues/02/in-conversation-with-tao-lin.html
  82. https://taolin.us/store
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